I am a fat girl inside and out. I have to eat. This blog will chronicle my struggles and successes with weight loss.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Goal Setting and Winning

Having goals is always a good thing. You should make goals in all areas of your life. Goals give you direction. Before I tell you about my non-scale victory, I want to tell you some of my goals and we can critique them together.

One of the things I see often right now is the acronym SMART. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time. Here are some of my current goals. Some are general and some are weight loss related.

Be a better listener.
Be a better housekeeper (always a goal, I am not good here)
Be more organized.
Lose 53 more pounds by July
Add 1000 steps to daily goal weekly, ONLY if I reach my goal 3 or more days that week. (More on that in a moment.
Be healthier.

My problem with my goals is they are kind of vague. Be a better listener, be a better housekeeper, be more organized, and be healthier are not very specific. Non-specific goals are not very SMART for many reasons, but I need to work on them. I think I may try to make a list of 12 goals and tackle them each month. I will come up with specific, measurable goals, and ways to reach them each month and try to do them. I will probably forget or not get that done, because I am flaky and disorganized. :)

I have 2 goals here that are specific. One may seem confusing but I will explain it momentarily. First, lose 53 pounds by July is Specific, sort of. Fifty-three is a specific number and July is a specific month. The problem here with the specificity is that I don't say when in July. The first? Fifteenth? Thirty First? Okay, so lets say the 23rd which is the hubby's birthday. Well, that's almost fourteen weeks. In fourteen weeks it would not be advisable by most to lose 53 pounds. Healthy weight loss is generally 1-2 pounds a week. At fourteen weeks, that's only 28 pounds recommended loss. So, it's specific, measurable, attainable (I can lose 53 pounds in 14 weeks) it's not realistic. Let's adjust that weight-time ratio to my anniversary. So now, if I say that my goal is to lose 53 pounds by

October 31, it is Specific (certain number of pounds in a
certain amount of time), Measurable (I can see the pounds on the scale and the
date on the calendar), Achievable (I can lose weight), Reasonable (I can do it
in 27 weeks, and it has a defined Time. I can make it a SMART goal easily.

On to a SMART goal that I am slaying. I made a goal to add
1000 steps to my step goal each week, if I hit my step goal at least 3 days
that week. Then when I hit 10,000 as a goal, I will add 1000 every other week
until 15000. Let me give you an example that might make it more understandable: Let's say this is week one, and my goal is 6000 steps a day. I must hit that target at least 3 days in week one in order to increase to a goal of 7000 a day in week two. I don't beat myself up if I don't meet my goal, but I do try again next week. I began week 1 with a goal of 5000 steps per day. Low, I know. I was even struggling to hit that goal. I don't know exactly what week I am on (it feels like week 4000), but I have been consistently adding 1000 steps. I am now up to 9000 steps per day. I have almost doubled my weekly goal. That is great. I have also begun to hit that goal with less effort. I will post a few pictures. Keep in mind that when you raise your step goal with FitBit it doesn't maintain your goal at the time of the steps. For example, when I adjusted my goal on Sunday (I always change on Sunday) any day that didn't hit the new goal doesn't have a star, even if it did before. Also, FitBit adjusts the scale on the y axis to meet the needs of the graph. The first chart starts at 2000 and stops at 6000 but the second one begins at 6000. There are significantly different numbers at play here. The biggest thing is that I have doubled my weekly steps in just a month, and I feel good about it. I am reaching that goal. I should make the goal again this week, which means next week 10,000. I will then start reaching for 15,000 essentially. That's triple my original goal! It matters. I feel better, I look better, and I am happier. Be proud when you reach a goal that doesn't involve the scales. Set SMART goals, and go for them.

3 More pictures to show the last 3 days: In order they are 4/17, 4/16, 4/15. Whew!